I love Twitter, some would say I'm addicted! To date I've tweeted more than 30,500 times. As a GP, I think it is an excellent way — along with other social media platforms — to debate and share thoughts and ideas about primary care and the NHS. I also think it has the potential to improve the communication healthcare professionals have with each other, with their patients and with the public.

Communicating with my patients and building lasting relationships is an essential part of my job – probably the part I enjoy most and I am constantly looking for ways to do this more effectively. These days, with social media being everywhere we turn, linking the two instinctively makes sense to me.

However, in my profession there is a line to be drawn; the question is where? Sometimes the line gets very blurred and I have often battled with the dilemma of whether or not I should reply to a Tweet from one of my patients. Should I put my opinion "out there" into the public sphere, or not?

It's not a new debate. Before social media there was the issue of whether GPs should share email addresses with patients and before that, phone numbers. However, with social media the key issue is regulation. I can regulate who sees my emails, whose calls I answer. But once something is on a social media platform, it's public information. Social media opens a Pandora's box of ethical issues to consider.

Nor is it a debate exclusive to healthcare professionals. Any sphere in which ethics and client-safety are paramount is faced with the questions of when to use social media, how and with whom. These are all judgement calls but, until now, there has been a distinct lack of guidance – in my field anyway — on how to make that judgement.

This is why I am I'm proud that the Royal College of GPs has produced a Social Media Highway Code, which was launched this week. It is the first-ever practical guide to help UK healthcare professionals navigate their way around the ethical and confidentiality dilemmas of social media, showing how it can be used to improve healthcare while keeping patient care and safety a top priority.

What's more, the comprehensive and common-sense code is adaptable to other professions — legal, political, educational – where similar ethical considerations need to be taken into account.

It is clear that social media, when used responsibly, has the potential for many benefits to patients. It can improve access to healthcare services and disseminate information to those hard-to-reach groups such as teenagers.

The important thing is knowing how to navigate social media while protecting yourself, your patients, and as far as possible, the population as a whole. The code – a simple, ten-point plan – both encourages the use of social media and makes doctors aware of the risks involved. It draws from the experience of doctors, nurses, journalists, lawyers, students and patients and is designed to help healthcare professionals make their own judgements, not to impose rules on their online behaviour.

Dr Clare Gerada is chair of the Royal College of GPs

Co-author of the code, Ben Riley, @drbenriley, and Clare Gerada, @clarercgp, are hosting a Twitter debate to discuss your views on the code on Friday. Join them between 12-1pm, using the hashtag #RCGPSoMe